Striking rich: Jack Hoffman and the other stars of “Gold Rush Alaska” are dealing with a “modern-day gold rush” according to the show’s executive producer. (Discovery Channel)
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The skyrocketing price of gold has been a boon for those reality shows relying on the adrenaline-rush of cold, hard cash for their entertainment value.
Part of the fun of shows like “Gold Rush Alaska,” “Pawn Stars” and “Auction Kings” is the vicarious thrill of seeing how much someone’s stuff is really worth on the open market.
And with the selling and buying of gold playing a starring role in these shows, the fact that gold recently hit a record high of $1,800-an-ounce — in a wildly fluctuating stock market and an uncertain economy — has spiked viewer interest.
“I’ve absolutely noticed an acute increase in business over the last couple of months,” says Paul Brown, whose Gallery 63 auction house in Atlanta is the centerpiece of Discovery’s “Auction Kings,” currently filming its second season (airing through the end of the year).
“There’s no doubt I’ve seen a spike in the number of people coming into my building trying to sell gold,” Brown says. “And that’s directly tied to the steady drumbeat of news about [rising] gold prices.
“In these times we live in, people are looking to sell virtually anything with gold,” he says. “People are going through their drawers and jewelry boxes, and picking out stuff they haven’t worn in years — to see if maybe it’s worth something.”
Even established businesses built on the trading and sale of gold — like the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas featured on History’s megapopular “Pawn Stars” — are feeling the effects of unusually high gold prices.
“It’s definitely effecting their day-to-day business,” says Brent Montgomery of Leftfield Pictures, which produces the show. “The bulk of the pawn business is gold and silver jewelry . . . which they know they can turn around in a matter of minutes.
“And it doesn’t hurt their business when gold is going up. There’s been a mad rush in their shop for gold in the last week.”
“The stakes have never been higher,” says Christo Doyle, the executive producer of Discovery’s “Gold Rush Alaska,” which follows six unemployed guys from Oregon who are mining for gold in The Last Frontier.
“As the [shows stars] are up there in Alaska mining, everyone affiliated with the show is watching the price of gold continue to skyrocket.
“What that means for the [miners] is that they can bring home more money. Todd [Hoffman, one of the miners] is set on bringing home 500 ounces of gold this season,” Doyle says.
“You multiply that by $1,500 and they’re not only licking their chops but they’re working twice as hard.”
And, Doyle says, he noticed one other thing while filming the show in the midst of the hyper-inflated gold market.
“We flew up in the Dawson [Alaska] area on an ‘Indiana Jones’-type airplane and all of the sudden you see bustling activity below you in the middle of nowhere,” he says, noting that everyone who mines for gold in Alaska has their own “claim” (and their own space in which to mine).
“What our crew is contending with is essentially a modern-day gold rush,” he says. “People are coming out of the woodwork — some are doing well, some are getting into trouble.
“But they’re literally staking their claim in an economy that’s created a little bit of panic.”